


The Grit from Stars

by Portrait_of_a_Fool



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Implied Violence, M/M, Minor Violence, minor injury, some blood, some strong language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-22
Updated: 2013-10-22
Packaged: 2017-12-30 03:39:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1013645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Portrait_of_a_Fool/pseuds/Portrait_of_a_Fool
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John was okay with the status quo at first, but he's not anymore, not even close. It hasn’t started to strangle him yet, but he can feel the fingers of it waiting to close around his throat and squeeze. The problem is, if he says anything then he may lose it all and he's not sure he wants to take that chance, not with this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Grit from Stars

**Author's Note:**

> This was written as a sequel to [Lustmordred's](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lustmordred) fic, [Every Day Above Ground](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1005690). While I think this can stand alone, I highly recommend you read her fic as well because it's a great piece of writing. Much like [Lustmordred's](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lustmordred) original fic, this one is like a character study with illusions of grandeur. If you decide to read it, I hope you enjoy it. :)

_“Love can be terribly obscene.”_

— D.H. Lawrence

On days John gets to the library before Harold, he reads. He’s read _A Brief History of Time_ —most of it anyway, come to find out, John’s not much of a physics guy—and _Gone with the Wind_. He made it about halfway through _The Catcher in the Rye_ before determining that Holden Caulfield wasn’t all that crazy, just spoiled and bored, which made him unlikeable to John. He’s read Asimov, Lovecraft and two books by Philip K. Dick. He’s also read a collection of short works by D. H. Lawrence and a collection of poetry by John Donne. The latter’s interest in being ravaged by his God made John’s eyebrows twitch upward. Ravaged can mean a few things, but in the context that Donne spoke, it leaned strongly towards rape. That was just bizarre, even to someone like John Reese who has seen many bizarre things and probably heard even more.

This morning, he chooses the weighty tome that is _Don Quixote_ and goes to sit in Harold’s chair so he can prop his feet on the corner of the desk. Hefting the book in his hands, John thinks that if he likes it this one will provide him with months, maybe even years, of early morning entertainment. He doesn’t have much time to read and _Don Quixote_ is massive.

It’s very early, the winter sky outside still mostly dark save a faint lightening along the horizon to the east, which means he has at least two hours before Harold arrives to begin the day. Sometimes John doesn’t sleep very well and when that happens, he walks through the dark with no real destination in mind, but usually he ends up right here in the library. He woke this morning to an empty bed and Bear gone, but got up to find two tubes of medicated Chap Stick on his kitchen counter, one of Harold’s ever-practical gifts—and a hint, if John’s not mistaken. It had made him laugh, which dispelled the strange twinge of annoyed displeasure and something else he’d had upon first discovering Harold gone _again_ and the dog gone with him.

He’s no stranger to sleeplessness and knows when he’s awake for the day or has only been interrupted in his slumber. Today being a case of the former, John showered and dressed then dutifully applied Chap Stick before putting the tube in his trouser pocket. He’d slipped out of his warm apartment and into the frigid, dark morning. Harold would have kittens if he knew John went out into such weather with wet hair.

If he’s lucky and it’s winter, he can tilt his head back as he wanders along and under the watching eyes of the streetlights he can look up at the snow swirling down from the leaden sky above. It’s hypnotic and one of his small, secret pleasures, but in all fairness to the other seasons, he also enjoys watching rain do the same thing. It’s not a pleasure he indulges in too often because it means he can’t watch his surroundings, but once in a while is nice.

This early morning in late December he indulged himself and blinked the cold, tiny flakes from his eyelashes and felt them melt down the sides of his face and into the greying hair at his temples. The cold wind scouring his cheeks feels good to John, as does the way it shoots down the unbuttoned collar of his standard white shirt. Winter is his favorite season and many years ago, in some cold Romanian ruin, he found himself thinking of it as the _forever_ season. It’s not a thought John finds discomfiting in the least. Winter doesn’t offer as much cover as other, leafier seasons do, but he’s willing to allow it that much.

 _Allow_. The thought makes John smile faintly as he opens the book balanced on his thighs to the first page and begins to read. The water of melting snow trickles across his scalp, under his collar and he lets it tickle along the line of his spine without trying to swipe it away. As he reads, he slips his hand into his right pocket and takes out the Chap Stick. Now that it’s been ever so subtly pointed out to him, his lips really are in need of something since they’re a bit of a mess. It does explain why he’s tasted blood a couple of times lately when licking his lips. He thought maybe it was just his imagination because sometimes that happens.

††††††††

It’s 8:30 on the dot when Harold arrives at the library to find John sitting in his chair with a book large enough to kill a man balanced in his lap. Harold watches him and knows that John is aware of his presence, but is ignoring him in that carefully practiced way he has. He unclips Bear’s leash and he goes to John, nosing at his thigh and wagging his tail. John doesn’t look away from his book, but does drop a hand down to scratch the dog’s head as he turns the page with his other hand. He doesn’t glance up—he’s waiting him out, which rankles a bit—until Harold politely clears his throat.

“Good morning, Harold,” John says as he lifts his head and turns it towards Harold.

There is the shadow of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth and Harold fights himself against returning it. He knows if he did, that shadow would turn to light, to white teeth and eyes that almost seem to spark. He wants to see it and yet, he does not. It would be impractical to encourage John more than he already does. With the ghost of last night lingering in the back of Harold’s mind, it seems an even riskier thing.

“Good morning, Mr. Reese,” is all he gives in return.

John closes the book, marking his place with his finger and his eyes slide away from Harold, down to Bear who’s waiting patiently for more attention.

He’s lightly pushing the dog, encouraging him to play when he asks, “Do we have a number?”

“We do indeed,” Harold says. “I’ve already begun looking into it and if you’d be so kind as to vacate my seat, I should soon be able to find more.”

John snuffs softly with amusement and gets up; taking his book with him and Harold reclaims his throne. Hands hovering above the keyboard, Harold pauses and asks, “What are you reading?”

“Don Quixote,” John says, turning the book around to show him.

“Excellent choice,” Harold says.

John smirks; thinking how it sounds like Harold is congratulating him on choosing a superb wine vintage. _The 17th century was a very good century for the first modern novel._

“I’m enjoying it so far,” he says.

“It’s going to take you ages to finish it if you only read it here,” Harold says as he begins tapping away at his keyboard.

“I don’t mind,” John says. He sits in the other chair and opens the book again while he waits for Harold to tell him what he needs to know.

Harold types away and occasionally flicks his eyes up and to the right to where John sits in a dusty shaft of light from the window behind him. His dark hair gleams and the light soaks into the white collar of his shirt, making it look like it is glowing. He can smell medicated Chap Stick faintly in the air, hovering above the scent of ozone from the electronics and the older, more secretive odor of the books that surround them. To know his gift has been accepted; his hint taken, pleases him in a way that’s much too large to really be deemed acceptable. Try as he might, he can’t shake it off though.

Then he notices John watching him from the corner of his eye, something an alarming lot like a barely formed question in that gaze. For a second, Harold is held there, fascinated as always when he sees the turquoise of John’s eyes like this, with light cutting through it and making it clear as warm, gulf waters. Then Harold flicks his eyes back to the screen and there, _there_ —information, an out, is blinking back at him from the monitor.

From his chair, he thinks he hears John sigh and knows he hears the soft rustle of his clothes as he shifts in his seat. There is the dry, rasping whisper of a page turning and then he stands up, wanting to get started before John begins another page. He’s always hated to interrupt people when they’re reading, it seems abominably rude to him and there’s also the tiny fact he’s already entertaining the idea of discussing _Don Quixote_ with John someday. Maybe they can talk about it over dinner or while walking after a movie. Oh, such a dangerous thought that is made even more so by the way Harold warms to it.

††††††††

Trying to track down a couple intent on murdering the teenager entrusted to their care so they can collect on the kid’s trust fund is hard work. Desperate people are unpredictable and John should know that better than anyone, but when he finally runs down the wife half of the would-be murderous equation, he grabs for her without really thinking it through. It’s stupid of him, so, so _stupid_ , but he’s angry at these people. The depths human beings will sink to in the name of greed makes him sick, especially when it’s a traumatized 15 year old girl who hasn’t spoken in over a year after seeing her parents and twin sister murdered in front of her.

These people, the Mansells, lead a double life—well to do and successful on the outside, where the rest of the world can see, but in financial and moral ruin on the inside, where prying eyes cannot peer. Unless they have eyes like Harold Finch does, eyes that can see anything they so choose to look at.

When Jorja Mansell slaps at him, he thinks nothing of it until he feels the flesh of his hand part in a sideways smile. Only then does he see the gleam of the single-edged razor blade she’s palmed, holding the dull side between her ring and middle fingers. The arc of her swing brings her hand around in a curve and he feels skin split like dry rotted silk from about halfway between his pinkie and wrist, all the way around to his palm. The cut is deep, but the blade is sharp and the shocked flesh gapes, raw red and moist as a kiss for half a second before blood begins to well in the wound. Her grey eyes are wide, her mouth pressed into a thin, fierce line and mascara is smeared in raccoon circles on her pale, hateful face. Then she whirls and is gone, headed for the door as the first fat drops of blood fall onto the dirty concrete of the warehouse floor. 

She hits the bar to force the door open and for an instant she is silhouetted in a halo of bright afternoon sunlight and then she is flying backwards with a sharp, cut off cry. Shaw in standing in her place, a tiny, black-clad shadow also haloed in sunshine with her gun in her hand; an avenging angel come to claim this day’s daily bread by force.

“I hope you don’t mind,” she says, gesturing down at the woman’s dead body. “I really wanted to kill that bitch.”

“No, I don’t, but Finch will most likely have something to say about it later,” John says.

He stuffs his bleeding hand in his coat pocket, feels the lips of the wound moving together with surprising coarseness. He knows it’s the outer edges of his upper dermis rubbing against one another, trying to make themselves whole again. He still thinks of it as all of the severed nerves grating against one another like tiny filament wires sparking out pain signals that he’s trying to ignore. His pocket fills with blood and they still have the husband to track down. This is inconvenient, to say the least.

“Finch always has something to say,” Shaw says. She nudges the woman’s body with the toe of her boot and John grimaces a bit. He likes her, but she’s morbid even by his standards. “We should go track down her old man now. I want to kill him, too.”

John smiles and starts walking towards her. “We need to leave Carter and Fusco something to do, Shaw,” he says. “You can shoot him if you want to, just not a kill shot.”

“Spoilsport,” Shaw mutters, but she nods. “Okay. Has the Great and Powerful Finch given us directions yet on where to go next?”

John shakes his head and pulls his hand out of his pocket. Shaw looks at the bloody mess and whistles low. “Damn,” she says. “I guess this means we’re making a pit stop then.”

“Yep,” John says. “And you get to stitch me up.”

Shaw smiles. “I’m good at that,” she says. “Harold’s going to love this.”

She’s practically bouncing in place and it makes John smile as he puts his hand back in his soaked pocket. He can smell his own blood now, but it’s not a bad smell. He decided a long time ago that if he could smell his blood then that meant he was closer to alive than dead, no matter how much of it there was. Some people would probably call that morbid, too, but that’s why he gets along with Shaw so well.

“I thought you might be,” he says as he walks out of the warehouse and into the bright whiteness of the winter sunlight. He closes his eyes for a moment against the glare and lets the fleeting warmth move across his face before a blast of wind disperses it. He taps his earpiece, opening his line up to Harold and breathes out, watching the thin cloud of his breath as he passes through a shadow. “Harold, we’re on our way back to the library. We hit a bit of a snag.”

“What kind of snag?” Harold asks. His voice has that crackling pitch John has grown so familiar with, the one that teeters on the border of calm and panicked. It rises and falls by half an octave, maybe a whole one and then dips again. It’s a rollercoaster tone of voice.

“A sharp one,” John says.

“Are you all right?”

“Sure, I just need a few stitches is all,” John says.

“What happened?” Harold demands. His pitch has shifted, it’s all jagged rocks, worry and a touch of anger. It jostles its way through John in a way he finds pleasant because it’s a tone that cares and those are incredibly rare.

“I’ll tell you when we get there,” John says. He starts to cut off the connection, but pauses to say, “One threat has been eliminated; Jorja Mansell is no longer a problem.”

There’s a pause on Harold’s end and then he asks, “ _How_ eliminated?”

“Permanently,” John says with a little smile. Before Harold can say anything else, he says, “See you soon, Harold.”

Blood has started to soak through his coat and into the leg of his pants. There’s going to be blood stains on his Chap Stick.

††††††††

Harold gets the first aid kit out and ready to go for when John and Shaw come in. It’s one John put together himself and it’s not so much a kit as it is a _case_. Or a toolbox, because that’s what he stashed everything in. It weighs approximately a ton and Harold finds it awkward to lug around, but he’d rather do his part than worry about his own comfort.

John is bleeding, he needs stitches. He doesn’t know how bad it is because John never tells him and it’s difficult to infer much from his infuriatingly serene tone of voice. Without concrete knowledge, his imagination supplies him with remarkably vivid images involving everything from spurting arteries to missing fingers, toes or even an ear. Just imagining that much blood, that much _damage_ , makes Harold feel a touch woozy.

He paces around and around his desk, bobbing like a cork in eddy water while he waits and when Bear sits up with a _whuff!_ , Harold knows they have arrived. He’s waiting for them at the top of the stairs, dreading what he may see, but needing to see it all the same.

John sees the look on his face and almost reaches out to touch him, to clasp his shoulder or curve his uninjured hand around Harold’s flushed cheek, but he doesn’t. He can’t. So, he just says, “I’m fine, Harold.”

Harold looks him over, seeking out tell-tale bloodstains or gaping wounds. He glances at John’s face, eyes flicking left to right to make sure both ears are still there. He’s relieved to find they are.

“What happened?” he asks again.

“Just a scratch,” John assures him.

Shaw snorts. “He got slashed,” she says. “It’s messy.”

Harold pales at her words and John really wants to smack her upside the head for half a second. “It’s not that bad,” he says.

Harold swallows. “Let me see,” he says. Brave words for a man who faints at the sight of too much blood.

“Harold.”

“Let me see, John,” Harold says.

Shaw’s got her head cocked slightly to the side, eyes moving back and forth between them, observing. Harold is aware of her doing it, but right this moment he doesn’t much care.

“You really don’t want to see it,” John says.

Harold makes an impatient sound in his throat and looks like he’s ready to grab John’s arm and forcibly pull it from his pocket so he can inspect the damage. It would make John smile if he didn’t know Harold was likely to _swoon_ at the sight of it. John sighs and takes his hand out of his pocket anyway, there’s no need to cause a scene and Shaw is already watching them with bright-eyed curiosity.

Harold takes one quick look at John’s cut hand and reels backwards as he closes his eyes. “Dear God.”

“I told you,” John says.

Harold swallows and nods as he turns away. “Yes, yes you did.” He should’ve listened, but that’s a problem he and John both have, not listening to reason.

He goes back to his chair, keeping his back to them and waves a hand at the first aid toolbox. “I got that out for you,” he says lamely as he sits down.

“Thank you,” John says.

Harold nods and turns his chair to face the wall behind it. He only saw the wound for a moment, but it was enough to leave him with the unsettling impression that John’s hand had suddenly gained the power of expression. One of slack-jawed, toothlessly drooling surprise. His stomach flips at the thought and he closes his eyes again.

He listens to Shaw rummaging through the toolbox for the suture kit and then the sounds of her working. He hears John’s softly indrawn breaths, so familiar and yet so different given the context. Harold likes them when they’re sounds of pleasure, but these are sounds of bitten back pain and those make him want to stroke John’s hair, offering comfort in his own clumsy way.

“So, okay, maybe this is more like triage,” Shaw says.

It takes John a second to get what she’s talking about, but then he remembers their conversation back in September while standing over Mr. Stan Humphrey. Then he laughs through gritted teeth as he watches Shaw’s deft fingers working the stitches in. He feels like he’s being reupholstered.

“There’s not a line a mile long though,” he says.

“I could shoot Finch or something if you want a line to make it more official,” Shaw says.

“Miss Shaw!” Harold squawks without turning around.

John can see his shoulders hunched up defensively around his ears and he can also see the way Shaw is grinning. “She’s joking, Harold.”

“Maybe I’m not,” Shaw says. She bites her bottom lip to keep from laughing.

Harold makes a sound a lot like a _harrumph!_ and John closes his eyes with a smile of his own. He enjoys Harold’s neuroticism and eccentricity, his way of being so proper as to find himself the butt of more than one joke about being _ladylike_. Harold’s a bit—okay, a lot—uptight, but there’s nothing about him that’s _feminine_ to John. Of course, that doesn’t mean he can’t still find the jokes funny.

“Yes, well, I suppose you both think you’re very funny, running out and getting cut up and then… then…” Harold trails off with a frustrated sound and John watches his left hand fly up from the arm of his chair and cut through the air with a slash.

“Aw, Harold, are you concerned about me?” John asks.

He can’t help himself. His tone is needling, gently mocking, but a part of him genuinely wants to hear an answer. He wants to hear, _Yes_. Harold is the only person in the world that he cares whether they’re concerned about him. He doesn’t really know what that means. Sometimes he thinks he gets it or almost gets it, but then it squirms away from him and he’s left with only a strange tug in his gut that is _so_ familiar and totally unfamiliar, alien even, at the same time.

“Be quiet, Mr. Reese,” is Harold’s terse response.

Shaw raises an eyebrow and John feels a tiny anchor sink in his chest, headed towards his stomach. He does what Harold asks and no one says another word while Shaw finishes patching him up. Harold plays with Bear, a game of tug-o-war with one of his rope toys and the motions turn his chair to the side and then back again. John watches the sliver of his profile when it comes into view and sometimes, he sees that Harold’s eyes are cut to the side, looking right back at him.

When Shaw’s got his hand bandaged and taped up good and snug, they’re ready to go again. Harold, turned back around to face them, sees them off with a tiny frown on his face. Shaw slaps John on the back and tells him to get the lead out of his ass then she’s gone down the stairs like a shot.

“Right behind you, Shaw,” John says.

“I’ll see you later, Mr. Reese,” Harold says. The meaning is clear to them both and John nods.

“I look forward to it,” John says. He gives Harold a quick wave with his bandaged hand and the pleased look on his face makes Harold’s gut clench.

Harold nods, but John is already gone and he closes his eyes. “I know you do,” he murmurs into the still air of the library.

††††††††

It’s late afternoon by the time they get David Mansell taken care of. Shaw doesn’t get to shoot him after all, but John kneecaps him and that makes him feel marginally better about his injured hand. An eye for an eye and all that. Carter and her rookie partner are first on the scene, courtesy of a call from an anonymous concerned citizen (Finch doing his part) and Fusco is right behind them. John and Shaw sit in a crowded coffee shop and watch the action unfold, taking pride in their work, although Shaw is sulking a bit.

“I wanted to shoot him,” she says like John took the last cookie and they were her favorite kind.

“Maybe next time,” John says. “You really need to learn to share, Shaw.”

“No, I don’t,” Shaw says.

The indignation in her voice strikes John as funny, but she’s pissy and so he doesn’t even crack a smile to let on. Instead, he stands up and tilts his head toward the shop’s side exit. “Come on, I’ll buy you a late lunch,” he says.

“You know how to earn forgiveness,” Shaw says as she pops up from her seat.

John’s not all too sure he knows a damn thing about forgiveness and if it was as simple as buying food for people, he’d dedicate a good deal of his free time to doing just that. Still, he wants to buy Shaw lunch and it’s made her stop being so petulant, so he counts it as a double win.

Forty five minutes later, they’re sitting at an outdoor table of some pub-slash-diner and Shaw is eating a monstrous chili bacon cheeseburger and drinking beer like it’s water. John has a beer of his own and steals a fry off her plate. She notices, but since she doesn’t try to stab him with the fork she’s ignoring in favor of getting chili all over her hands, he does it again.

“If you’re hungry, you should get your own,” she says.

“Maybe I want to eat yours,” John says.

“Maybe you’re an ass,” Shaw says. She sounds like she approves.

“Maybe I am,” John allows as he takes another fry.

Shaw grumbles to herself then picks up her beer for a long swallow before flagging the waitress for another pitcher. John tops his own beer off, emptying the pitcher they have, before Shaw can grab it. He’s almost as good with his left hand as he is his right and the look on her face suggests she momentarily despises him for that. Sociopaths are cute that way.

She takes a vicious bite of her burger and John is quietly fascinated at the way she’s managing to eat the messy thing without wearing half of it. She’s got chili all over her hands and a smear on her chin, but none on her clothes or in her lap. Watching Shaw eat is an interesting thing worthy of advanced scientific study. The woman eats like a hog at the slop trough and yet remains surprisingly tidy for all of that.

“So, how long have you been fucking Finch?” Shaw asks around a mouthful of half-masticated burger. She tilts her head to the side and then adds, “Or maybe it’s the other way around, I don’t know what you do.”

John nearly chokes on his latest stolen fry and swallows it like a wad of salty cotton. She’s watching him expectantly, no judgment or amusement in her eyes, just frank, open curiosity.

“Shut up, Shaw,” he says mildly.

She narrows her eyes at him, annoyed at being told to shut up, but then the look melts from her face. He just told her almost everything she wanted to know without outright telling her anything. She gets it and it makes her smirk.

“Okay,” she says. She picks up one of her fries, bites off half of it and watches as the waitress sets down their fresh pitcher of beer. “You sure it’s a good idea though?”

John considers telling her to shut up again, but decides against it. “I don’t know.”

“Maybe you should figure it out,” Shaw says.

John doesn’t say anything to that. He picks up his beer and drains it then pours himself another one after topping Shaw off. Maybe he should think about it and maybe he should’ve thought more on what Harold said all those many months ago when it first started, but the thing is this: He doesn’t want to. It may be a bad idea and it probably is, but John doesn’t want it to stop happening regardless.

Shaw takes the hint and finishes her food in silence, not even grumping when John proceeds to finish the rest of her fries for her. She gets pie for dessert and orders him a slice as well. Aside from saving his life more than a few times, it’s probably the nicest thing she’s ever done for him. He tries not to question the _why_ of it.

††††††††

That night when Harold lets himself into John’s apartment, he’s sitting on the sofa with a glass of scotch. Harold lets Bear off his leash to go careening across the slick wood floors and John gestures at the bottle on the coffee table.

“Pour you one?” John asks him as he ruffles Bear’s fur.

“No, thank you,” Harold says as he hangs up his coat then limps across the room to sit on the side of the rather cramped sectional farthest from John.

John watches him with something lurking in his eyes that Harold doesn’t want to think too much about. He knows what he does, he knows all about his walls and how he safeguards himself against disaster. Nathan and Grace are like beautiful dreams turned ugly and he never wants that to happen again. He misses Nathan so much that sometimes it aches right down into his bones and twists around the fused vertebrae of his spine like a barbed wire snake. Watching Grace is like shoving splinters under his own fingernails. Harold has enough unwanted masochistic distractions to add another to the list and that’s what John will one day be—another psychic pain that he can’t quit prodding at.

So, he keeps John a safe distance away from him although he can feel John’s want for more like an itch. If Harold were more capable of being forthcoming, he would tell John, _This is for the best, trust me._ He knows that if he ever found the words to do it, that John would call him a liar and it would begin a conversation that Harold most certainly does not want to have. This way is so much better and he only wishes John could understand that.

The silence ticks by, measured only by the sounds of Bear’s toenails on the wood floors and Harold relaxes into it. The silence is heavy though, weighted by the way John glances at him ever so often, looking for something that Harold won’t let him see. He rests his hand on the arm of the sofa and when John scoots nearer to him, he cuts his eyes to the side to watch, waiting to see what he’s up to. Harold’s other hand is resting on the cushion beside him and John’s bandaged hand twitches. He means to move, to perhaps run his fingers over the back of Harold’s hand. Knowing that, Harold jerks his hand away and puts it in his lap.

John looks down at his feet and feels his shoulders tense then forces them to relax. It stings, never being able to touch Harold the way he wants to; when he wants to because Harold won’t allow it. He doesn’t even know why he tries, except that’s not totally true—he knows more than he even lets on to himself.

It’s Harold who takes the initiative a little while later, scooting over into John’s space so their sides are lightly touching. John turns his head and meets his eyes with a curiously hopeful expression. It makes something in Harold’s chest give a none too pleasant jerk.

“Hello, Harold,” he says.

Harold smiles, a flicker at the corners of his mouth that make his eyes a little squinty. “Mr. Reese,” he says and then he leans in and presses his mouth to John’s.

John moves in to meet him like a man starving because now he can touch. He’s being told he can have what he wants— _for now_ —and he takes it.

They make it to the bed, shedding clothes like snake skins along the way and John slides his bandaged hand up Harold’s ribs. The gauze is coarse, scratchy, but soft underneath. The cushioning of the bandage is reassuring; he knows John is taken care of. He has made a note of the wound and knows that no matter how good Shaw’s stitching, it will leave one more scar on John’s already scarred hands. Those scars make him sad if he lets himself think too long on all of the abuse John’s hands have so clearly suffered, but it’s much the same for all of John’s other scars.

Harold has begun keeping a catalog in his head, one where he adds notes on how each one came to be there. He makes things up for the scars he doesn’t know the stories of. Harold is John’s record keeper because someone has to be, someone _should_ be. Someone should keep him because no one else alive knows even most of the truth and Harold thinks that’s a shame. He’s greedy, too, though and has no interest in sharing all this information he’s gathered and filed away.

It’s the last clear thought Harold really has as they slide down onto the bed and John’s warmth covers him. His mouth is smooth and tastes of scotch. His lips are a little scratchy and taste of Chap Stick. The skin of his back is surprisingly silky under Harold’s stroking hands, even the raised lines and sunken divots of scars are, save one near the base of his spine near his waist that is rough. Harold has seen it, he has put his mouth on it in the dark and felt the way John shivers at the moist touch. He thinks it is what remains of a burn, but from what, he has no idea.

Time stops meaning much when they’re like this. It is measured only by the sounds of soft, murmuring sighs and the secret wet noises of open-mouthed kisses and then forgotten again. 

When it’s over, they never talk, John moves to his side of the bed, giving Harold his space. He would like to roll over and press against Harold’s side, pull the rumpled covers up over them both and close his eyes. He thinks he would sleep better than he has in decades with Harold resting beside him instead of somewhere out there in the vast expanse of the city, alone and unprotected. He knows better than to try though.

Harold lies on his back, blinking up into the city darkness, the ceiling a faraway grey-white outline above him. Snow is falling outside, the shadows from the tiny flakes casting shadows like misshapen polka dots across them both. He’s breathing and listening and thinking he should stop. If he told John, _No more,_ he would respect that and end it. But Harold doesn’t want to see the hurt that would spark and flare in his eyes. 

That hurt look in John’s eyes would be an afterimage of the look on Nathan’s face that he so easily, casually (crassly) missed when it first appeared. He’s had years to think it over though and replay the moment when Nathan saw the ring in the book. It was such a thoughtless thing for him to do to his friend that was, at one time, so much more than that. Sometimes, in his secret thoughts, Harold thinks himself a hideous fool. It’s that oh-so elusive human element that he tends to overlook. Sometimes he thinks he keeps Miss Groves around for no other reason than the fact she is, in many painful to acknowledge ways, a reflection of himself—of all the truly godawful and wretched things.

If he told John they needed to end it, he would want to take the words back the instant he said them. He is not unaware that it’s partly because he wouldn’t be stopping it because he really _wants_ to. Harold still does not think this is a good idea even though he keeps doing it, keeps encouraging John and leading him on. _Leading him on_ , what an ugly turn of phrase, but horribly true in this case because he cannot give John what he knows John wants. He thinks he’s known it even before John really knew.

Beside him, John’s breath is even and deep, he’s still, hands folded over his abdomen. Snowflake shadows decorate his gauze-wrapped hand in a pattern of ever shifting, ever changing shapes. Harold wants to kiss him goodbye, but presses his lips into a tight line and gets out of bed as gingerly, as quietly, as he can.

He gathers his clothes in the dark, letting the light from the street outside illuminate his way. He folds his tie and puts it in his pocket and drapes his vest over his arm, just like he always does. Then he turns to leave.

He’s halfway across the room when he hears, “Harold.”

He jumps and tilts dangerously to the side, nearly falling over. John’s soft voice is disconcertingly loud. Once he’s righted himself, Harold holds stock still and says, “Yes, Mr. Reese?”

He hears the sharp exhalation of John blowing air out of his nose. It frustrates him, Harold has been aware of it since the beginning, but he’s refused to stop. He sometimes thinks he’s treading on dangerous ground with his insistence on reasserting the distance between them, putting John in his place. Harold does not think of it that way—as _putting John in his place_ —but he’s almost certain that’s how John sees it and it’s one of the reasons he hates it.

He can hear John breathing and the soft squeak of springs when he sits up in bed. His eyes are on Harold, he can feel that gaze crawling over his skin with a prickle like insect legs.

After a few minutes—or maybe it’s only seconds—John sighs again, this time exhaling through his mouth. “Goodnight, Finch. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Indeed,” Harold says. He swallows as quietly as possible. “Goodnight… John.”

There is another sigh after that, but Harold doesn’t let himself think about that one, merely takes that as his chance to leave and seizes it.

When Harold is gone, John gets out of bed, pulls on his pants and goes to get a bottle of water. He stayed awake, feigning sleep the way he’d been taught to, just so he could catch Harold on his way to the door this time. He’d intended to ask him to stay, but after he’d spoken Harold’s name and seen him jump, something had happened. He refuses to say he lost his nerve, but he doesn’t know what else fits. _Yes, Mr. Reese?_ The brittle, tense tone of Harold’s voice, the way he’d used his name in that maddeningly formal way he persists with had made John freeze. He’d wanted to ask him to stay and in the end, he hadn’t because he’d been as close to afraid as he’s been in a long time. He’d been so because he thought, perhaps knew, Harold would say _no_.

John was okay with the status quo at first and thought he would stay that way. He had a good thing going with Zoe and wasn’t entirely willing to let it go and Harold didn’t seem like he’d wanted him to. John still sees her on occasion, though with far less frequency than he was. The last time he saw her, he sat on the bed and watched her get dressed and thought that it really was the _last time_ , at least for that. That afternoon as he’d watched her fastening her bra, he’d felt a lot like he was trying to have his cake and eat it, too. John never has liked that, not when it comes to things like intimate relationships. He’s just not wired that way, not even a little bit. He’s loyal and his loyalty lies with Harold and not with Zoe.

Zoe is not a friend he wants to lose, he’s fond of her and she’s good company, but sex with Zoe isn’t something he wants anymore. John knows that for her it’s nothing but casual fun with a friend anyway and she won’t mind when he turns her down the next time, although she may wonder why. She may even ask and he may even tell her—at least a little bit. She’ll carry on like nothing has changed, maybe she’ll suggest dinner or drinks instead and that makes her an _invaluable_ friend to him. Zoe Morgan doesn’t complicate things or make impossible demands, she goes with the flow and likes John for who he is.

John is all too aware that he isn’t so okay with the status quo anymore. Not even a little bit. It hasn’t started to strangle him yet, but he can feel the fingers of it waiting to close around his throat and _squeeze_. He doesn’t know what to do with it though because if he says anything, if he so much as hints then he will lose it _all_ , even these scraps Harold tosses him a few times a week. John, always a man of action, does not know what to do with this, not even close. He only knows he doesn’t want to lose it, even the little bit he’s got.

He stands in front of the closed refrigerator and drinks his water, considers taking a shower and washing off the scent of Harold’s delicate cologne—the same blend supposedly favored by Oscar Wilde, Harold told him—then decides against it. He could’ve slept earlier, but now that window has closed and he’s not sure what to do with himself. He finishes his water and decides to go lay down again. If he waits long enough, he’s sure to at least get a couple of hours of dozing in before he’s up for good.

Walking back across the apartment, he turns his head a bit and sees something sitting in the doorway. It’s a small, blocky shape and he raises his eyebrows then pads over to the nearest light panel and flips the switch on. He blinks, letting his eyes adjust to the sudden flood and then focuses on the shape just inside the door. It’s a book.

John laughs and wonders how the hell Harold does it. It’s like a magic trick, his sneakiness and he’d actually pay good money to know where Harold stashed the thing while they were doing… whatever it is they do. He probably left it out in the hallway and slid it into the apartment on his way out, but with Harold, John is never entirely sure. He goes to get the book and before he even picks it up, he knows what it is by the size alone. 

_Don Quixote_ is a nice weight in his hand when he lifts it up from the floor. At least now he knows what he can do for a while before he tries sleeping again. He sits down on the couch and opens the book. When he does, a tiny scrap of paper flutters out and into his lap. Picking it up, he reads, _I hope you continue to enjoy it. Perhaps we can talk about it when you’re done._ It isn’t signed, but a signature isn’t necessary. John folds the note up, lays it on the coffee table then sits back and opens the book up where he left off. Bear hops onto the couch and rests his head in his lap. John strokes his head while he reads.

††††††††

Their next number proves to be a 32 hour nightmare and by the time it’s over, John has a burn on his shoulder, a split in his eyebrow and more bruises than he cares to count. His clothes smell like scorched caramel and blackened butter. He’s got burned chocolate all over his shoes and flour everywhere else. Nothing says, _Success!_ like their perpetrator managing to blow up a bakery, of all the damn things. John thinks it’ll be a while before he stops smelling like a baking experiment gone terribly wrong; the smell seems steeped into his very skin. Shaw remarked that she was _fucking hungry, damn_ after they had escaped the flames.

Now she’s sitting in the library with a split in her bottom lip, a scrape on her cheek and two black eyes. She’s never looked happier as she makes her way through a cherry filled bear claw. They’re filthy and tired and none of them can quite figure out what happened to make this number go so wrong, aside from the fact they underestimated the guy’s intelligence and viciousness.

John’s letting it go a bit more with every minute that passes and Shaw has probably already put it out of her mind. Harold will be chewing at it for weeks to come though and so will Carter. It was the first time John had ever heard her curse more than the usual _damn_ or _hell_. She’d actually said, _What the fuck?_ after taking one look at them. All John had been able to do was shrug because he honestly didn’t know.

Now he’s tired and sore, residually aggravated about what a pain in the ass this whole thing turned out to be and he wants a shower then maybe a drink. Harold is strangely silent and John wants to ask him why, but he can’t, not with Shaw sitting there like a five foot nothing ghoulie with a sweet tooth. The thought makes John smile to himself as he watches her lick cherry filling off her split lip.

“I say we should go out for drinks and party a little bit,” Shaw says when the last crumb of bear claw has been disposed of. “Take the night off. Who’s with me?”

“Thank you, Miss Shaw, but no,” Harold says.

“Are you really going to go out like that?” John asks, gesturing at her filthy clothes, snarled hair and battered face.

“I was planning on taking a shower,” Shaw says. “Maybe. Why?”

“No reason, you just look a little… rough,” John says.

“Like hell,” Shaw says. “I look _good_.”

“Seriously?” John says.

“Eat me. Bruises are sexy,” Shaw insists as she stands up and brushes her hands off on her dirty black jeans. Flour puffs up from the cloth and fogs in the air.

John laughs and Finch even cracks a smile at that. Shaw notices and looks pleased with herself about it. John’s learned that she actually does seem to enjoy making them laugh, where with most people she’d just as soon shoot them as look at them. It’s a good sign, she’s becoming a part of the team, letting herself get comfortable with them and like them.

“Well, if you two old ladies are going to stay in and play pinochle or whatever, I guess I’ll catch you later then,” Shaw says. She waits a beat and when they both shake their heads, she shrugs. “Your loss.”

She’s gone after giving Bear a quick hug that leaves his brown fur a little more on the brownish-grey side. John sits in the quietness and breathes in his own burnt sugar scent. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and he’s been thinking about that for the last 12 hours or so. He won’t ask for tonight, they’re both exhausted and would probably fall asleep before dinner was ready. But he has a question and he means to ask it. So, he moves to stand in front of Harold’s desk and waits for him to look up.

“Tomorrow’s Christmas Eve,” John says. “Would you like to have an early dinner with me?

Harold glances away and pretends to read over something on the monitor in front of him as he lets the heavy weight of John’s expectance settle over him. He breathes in the scorched sweets smell that cloys in the air. In all truth, he and John are all the other one truly has and oh, oh… Harold knows John is in love with him. He’s known it since the day John so easily forgave him for the laptop that nearly got him killed.

It’s a bad idea. A _terrible_ idea with consequences—with _connotations_ —best left unexplored. Holidays are important milestones and they _mean_ something. It’s more encouragement and this is not something he can give. It’s not good for either of them.

“I’m afraid I have another engagement,” Harold says. It’s a lie and John probably knows it is, but he’s not going to take it back. Maybe it’s better if John knows it’s a lie. “Perhaps you can call Miss Morgan and you two can spend some time together. I’m given to understand you haven’t seen her in a while and it may do you some good.”

Even though the library is heated, the air goes suddenly, inexplicably cold and Harold stiffens. He risks a glance up at John, but only catches his profile as he turns away. His jaw is clenched and his hands are balled into fists at his sides so hard it must be agony on his cut hand. It may cause it to bleed again. Harold has the idiotic thought to tell him to stop it, to mind his injury before he makes it worse, but then the weight of what he just said _finally_ slaps him and he stops worrying about that.

For a split second John’s not sure he heard Harold correctly. Then a distant ringing starts in his ears and anger floods through his veins. It’s anger borne of nothing more than hurt and goddamn, it does _hurt_. With the first wave of his anger, John feels the bottom drop out of his stomach. Harold’s coldly casual dismissal bounces around in his head and he wonders what the hell he’s doing, why he’s even _bothering_. It’s like trying to run uphill with a boulder strapped to his back.

His shoulder muscles tighten with rigid knots as he stands with his back to Harold. He can feel warm wetness seeping between the stitches in his hand, soaking into the fresh gauze he wrapped around it not long after they got back to the library. Maybe Harold is unaware of it and maybe he is _perfectly_ aware, but either way, what he said was _cruel_.

John takes a slow, careful breath and lets it out just as slowly. “Fuck you, Harold,” he says. The words are pressed out between his clenched teeth before he thinks about them, but once they’re out he feels a little better.

Harold’s stunned silence is like a balm to him, even though everything right below the surface is raw and aching right now. John shakes his head once, hard enough it makes his head hurt a little bit and then he walks away as calmly as he can manage.

Harold watches him go with his mouth open in a small O of shock. He desperately wants to reel what he said back in and make it so it never happened. But, while Harold is a smart man, he still hasn’t managed to work out how to travel back in time and right all his wrongs. He could try to follow John, but John’s quick and he can disappear almost as well as Harold can, so it’d be a pointless effort.

Instead, he stares into the empty space that John so recently occupied and feels a heavy weight in his chest. He just did something awful, he knows he did and he did it all with the thought that he was doing something _good_. Yes, Harold thinks, he is a hideous fool sometimes. Bear whines and looks at him from his bed and Harold feels like even the dog is calling him a bastard right now.

“I am so sorry,” he says as he turns away to look out the library windows.

The winter is cold, but Harold feels even colder than the plummeting temperatures outside. As he watches snowflakes kiss the windowpanes as they fall like the grit from stars, Harold tries to think how he can fix this, but he just doesn’t know and the snow offers no solutions.

**…**

**Author's Note:**

> There is now a follow up to this one written by [Lustmordred](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lustmordred), called [Closed Doors & Open Windows](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1034310).
> 
> This has turned into a round-robin type series and I will be writing the second half of "Closed Doors & Open Windows". It should be posted soon(ish), so keep your eyes peeled. Because of how we're writing this series, it's impossible to link them _as_ a series, so we'll be linking to them in notes until ( _if_ ) we can figure out a better way. For anyone who may be interested, the name of the series overall is "The Human Element".
> 
> Thank you all for reading and we hope you enjoy! :D


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